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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25104301">The Logistics of Waiting for Change</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/FriendshipCastle/pseuds/FriendshipCastle'>FriendshipCastle</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Spookums Radio Anthology [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Cabin Fic, Canon Asexual Character, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, T for some talk about horniness, post-s4 but pre-s5, reference to canon-typical trauma but make it a joke</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 06:54:00</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,684</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25104301</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/FriendshipCastle/pseuds/FriendshipCastle</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In the cabin, Martin makes some cautious plans in the wake of the Eyepocalypse and waits for Jon to reach his own conclusions about what to do in the new world.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Spookums Radio Anthology [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1772725</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>85</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Logistics of Waiting for Change</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>After the world ends, Jon stops sleeping. He spends a lot of time in bed, though. It’s not really comforting because Martin knows he’s spending that time either hating himself, Knowing what’s going on, or experiencing someone else’s dreams (oftentimes Martin’s). He doesn’t talk about it much. There’s just an aura of gloom around him when he’s in bed. It’s his space to mourn.</p><p>Martin gives Jon that space. He gets up, has a bit of a routine to go through. He chops wood. Sometimes he does it meaningfully, like he’s showing whoever’s watching that he can use an axe and there’s a solid core of strength in his big arms. He reads. He writes. He plans, a little bit every day, what he would bring if (when) they ever leave the little house they’re staying in. </p><p>Martin learns a lot more than he ever expected to learn about Alice “Daisy” Tonner, though the cabin is barebones. She has piles of novels that were all from charity shops—mysteries and bodice rippers and young adult fiction and sci-fi and dry war biographies and fantasy, all jumbled together. Some are missing pages. Some have slips of paper stuck in them, makeshift bookmarks holding her place. Martin reads one every day or so, typically. Time doesn’t mean much in the new world. Time of day, that is; time spent alive is still worth counting. The time Martin spends awake and out of bed counts as a ‘day’ now. He makes small marks in the corner of the friendliest book he could find, a copy of <em>Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy</em> with half the grinning cover torn off. A mark for every day.</p><p>Jon gets up at least once a day. He doesn’t read any of the available books, but he’ll wander out, wrapped in one of the bed’s blankets, and he’ll clean something or tidy something away. It’s an excuse to follow Martin out of his misery. Neither of them comment on it. Martin will have some time on his own—maybe a few hours? Then Jon will emerge, bundled in a blanket and pajama bottoms and one of Martin’s jumpers. He looks so cozy but so sad. His eyes are twitchy, the muscles around them jumping or his gaze itself darting around. He still looks like Jon, but he’s always looking or avoiding looking. His eyes don’t rest. The movement of his pupils has nothing to do with the lighting.</p><p>When Jon wanders out and cleans a bit, Martin sometimes counts how long it takes for him to settle near Martin. It isn’t predictable, but it’s pretty quick that he loses interest in scrubbing the kitchen or bathroom. He’ll sit down a polite distance away, every time, like he’s still not sure he’s welcome. Martin’s never counted to more than 100 before one or the other of them shuffles over and initiates a cuddle.</p><p>The Lonely had been a blight on Martin’s libido. It had started coming back once they reached Scotland, but he’s fairly certain that the ongoing nightmare of constant surveillance reburied it, even though he spends half his time sharing a bed with the man he’s been crushing on and writing moony poetry about for years. Jon’s a calm, contented snuggler, despite his insomnia. He is very still and quiet and Martin can hold him or be held. Martin sweats if he wears more than a shirt to bed and Jon always has to wear socks, he gets cold so easily. Jon fits well under Martin’s chin. Their legs tangle. Jon hugs hard, and he runs his hands over Martin with a kind of reverence, like touching is a privilege. </p><p>Jon does not like being stroked—he says it reminds him of the last time he had a skincare routine. When Jon tells him this, Martin lets out a high, nervous giggle that makes Jon blink at him.</p><p>Martin says, “Sorry, that… I didn’t mean to…”</p><p>“It’s okay, Martin, it was a joke. It’s fine to laugh.”</p><p>“It’s just really messed up, Jon. That time you were kidnapped and forcibly moisturized by mannequins.”</p><p>Jon’s mouth twists and the deep dimple by his mouth appears. “That’s the joke.”</p><p>“Oh god, your sense of humor is <em>terrible</em>.” </p><p>Martin takes care not to pet Jon’s bare skin. He just rests his fingertips over scars and holds. Jon’s ribcage is small and fragile and shorter than it should be, which Jon admits is unnerving for his soft tissues but great for back flexibility. He has demonstrated his ability to touch his toes and twist his torso dramatically, which made Martin feel both impressed, guiltily curious, and a bit nauseous.</p><p>Jon skates his hands along Martin’s stretch marks and rolls and scars and blemishes as if he’s playing a harp. It’s good Martin isn’t ticklish, or else Jon would have been kicked out of bed ages ago. He holds Martin’s hands obsessively, commandeers Martin’s hands and uses them to cover his eyes or massage the back of his neck, places them on his body like they’ll weigh him down and ground him. Lying down, he seems to just want warm reminders that he exists. </p><p>Though the touching often moves under clothes, Martin never wakes up horny. He doesn’t even have erotic dreams. It’s disconcerting, like he’s lost a page of a familiar book. He’s been dealing with random arousal and waking up to sticky pants for nearly two decades but now he’s missing a piece of the story of his life that he used to know quite well. Still, the time spent with Jon wonderful, if Martin works to forget the reason they’re together and the world has ended. Jon is perfectly happy cuddling and kissing and caressing. Martin finds that being touched by someone who so clearly cares about him is kind of perfect, and getting to touch someone he’s been taking care of for years without any hope of reciprocation is astounding. </p><p>“Why do you keep giggling?” Jon asks, shuffling back from where he’d been lightly nibbling Martin’s ear. The couch creaks under his knees. The house moans a harmony. “You aren’t ticklish.”</p><p>“I dunno,” Martin giggles, in the midst of all the wailing furniture and walls. “You surprised me!”</p><p>“I told you I wanted to kiss you,” Jon says, his voice reasonable and bland, like he’s discussing something mundane instead of the incredible fact of necking with Martin. “I telegraphed it fairly well, I thought. How was it a surprise?”</p><p>“Didn’t think you’d have an ear fetish,” is all Martin can bring himself to say. The truth (<em>I didn’t think you’d ever think I was worth your attention, much less your love</em>) sounds so much sadder, and Jon is already sad.</p><p>“Do you not like me touching your ears—?”</p><p>“Jon,” Martin interrupts, trying to be serious and failing. “You can do whatever you want with my ears.”</p><p>“Get eight piercings,” Jon says immediately, and Martin laughs so hard at the deadpan delivery that he has to mash himself into the couch pillows to smother it. Jon demands gauges and spikes and chains, smiling while Martin howls himself gasping. Around them, the house groans at the hilarity.</p><p>Martin doesn’t remember his dreams, but he is fairly certain that if he did, a lot of his nightmares would be about finding Jon sprawled on his back, tape recorder in one limp hand and statement fanning away from the other, chin thrown back towards the ceiling. The line of his throat was so vulnerable. The clouds outside had been swirling. The smell rolling across the highlands—and, probably, the whole world—had been horrific. The cows had been screaming. And Jon was on the floor, one leg still trailing off the small desk chair where he’d been planning to read his little snack statements, until he could wean himself off of them. His mouth had been open, slack. His lips had bled from where he’d bitten them, trying to shut himself up. Even in unconsciousness, his eyes had moved in something sharper than REM sleep. </p><p>Martin had a sick moment of feeling fog roll in. He’d been left Lonely because Jon was once more in an impossible coma that was like death. But he’d still run make sure the man he loved was alive, and Jon had woken to a slap and the world ending. He’d laughed. He had looked disgusted with himself the whole time, but he’d laughed at the Apocalypse and the all-seeing Eye. That was the last time Jon had really laughed and it was horrible.</p><p>Martin had eventually closed the curtains and shut the door. It didn’t help the feeling of being watched, but it made Jon stop laughing and start crying, which had seemed to calm him down. Now, though, Jon only looks out the window when Martin isn’t in the room. Martin comes in sometimes and sees Jon standing there guiltily. He’s a terrible liar. He stands with a hand on the curtain, looking away from it like that will trick Martin into forgetting there’s a bloody window there, and an eye outside.</p><p>“I feel… safe here,” Jon says when they’re folded together in bed. “The house feels protected. Do you think the walls have thickened? The door sounds heavier when you open it now.”</p><p>“Mm,” Martin says.</p><p>“You really shouldn’t go outside,” Jon adds.</p><p>Martin spent time in the Lonely. He knows what a danger comfort can be. Safety and solitude can’t be trusted, especially in this end-of-times, when nothing is as it seems. Martin’s waiting for Jon to recognize it, too, because it’s fairly obvious that they’re just surviving here, living in a neutral space that can’t be sustained. Jon comments sometimes, those little ominous statements about the world being unsafe. It’s absolutely depressing, but it does make Martin hope that Jon will notice the house isn’t a place of security. It’s just a place of waiting. </p><p>Something will change. Jon will, or Martin will, or the Eye will. Secretly, Martin has a bet on Jon figuring out that movement is all they can take control over. He’s waiting.</p>
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